


Safe in His Mouth

by ScienceofObsession



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 21:42:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2166183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScienceofObsession/pseuds/ScienceofObsession
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a particularly awful case has Sherlock and John in emotional shreds, they come together to help each other heal in the best way they know how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe in His Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> This proves just how dramatic I am. 
> 
> All the beta love to the magical [scullyseviltwin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin), [wearitcounts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sher_locked_up/pseuds/wearitcounts) and [mojoflower](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MojoFlower/pseuds/MojoFlower).

 

The case had been brutal; a demolition of emotional barriers and all-too-human assumptions of heroic happy endings. They were both wrung out, dulled at the edges, barely speaking in recovery. Sherlock hadn’t come out of his room for days, answering each of John’s inquiring knocks with a brief, flat “No, John.”

tea. dinner. nap. tea. nightmare. bourbon. shattered glass.

It was the sob that pulls John to Sherlock’s door this latest time - an escaped, strangled noise that shivers straight down to his soles and causes him to forsake his usual determined respect for privacy. He is simply too exhausted to care, and the desperation in that sound is a call for help. He would not stop at ‘no’ this time.

On whispering stockinged feet he approaches, hand outstretched. His calloused fingertips find a sliver of open doorway, grazing the wood fibres of the frame in a tense connection; he slowly peeks into the room.

And then, John sees.   

Acres of marble-white skin, taut and trembling thighs, the perfect curve of buttock drawn straight from an anatomy textbook. Sherlock stands facing the wall, one hand placed high against it, fingers clawing, legs spread lasciviously wide. Sherlock’s head droops in a dark mass as noises escape his naked body and fall at his feet. His shoulder strains as it moves, quick efficient jerks that lay testimony to a search for release in the basest of methods.

John’s breath catches on the surprised inhale, his lungs seized by the proof that Sherlock does, in fact, participate in sex. But the agony wrapped in this, the strain he can see in those tense limbs - this was so much more than a simple wank.

Another strangled noise chases around the room, such a broken sound intermingled with the slick, frantic voices of flesh and lubricant. Entranced, John feels something taking root within him, feels the blood pooling between his legs and an ache pounding at his chest. Each quiet moan from Sherlock sends a current up John’s spine, the jolts wringing him out even as they harden his cock. The wood of the door scrapes on his skin as he finds his face pressed hard against the edge. It’s a precipice, and he can feel the fall beckoning.

Sherlock rises up on his toes, calves and flank firm and perfectly alabaster; his elbow and shoulder now moving in frantic concert. John is caught in it, unable to look away, breathe, move. He chokes on the knowledge that he cannot back away now, no matter how badly he knows he should, and presses the heel of one hand against the firm bulge in his jeans. He soaks in it, indulges in the burn, feels his own touch as if electrified. The battle within him rages: a need to comfort and care fighting with an animal urge to take and quell and _fuck_. He wonders if he can even claim worry now, hard as he is and wanting; a switch flipped inexplicably fast, a surge crashing down over his carefully-constructed walls. He closes his eyes and abandons himself to following a shiver from his crown to his toes, the fire of it coalescing low in his belly. He breathes in through his nose, trying to push down the overwhelming sensation of panicked arousal. He has to leave, he must. _Go, John,_ he thinks, fabricating a lie that he actually intends to do so.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to the wide, black pupils of a naked, wrecked Sherlock Holmes. He’s wild, achingly gorgeous, frighteningly intense as his gaze takes John apart second by searing second. His hand is slowed but still moving, deliberate strokes on his cock as his other hand twitches against the paneling behind him.  His mouth is open, tongue red and inviting behind almost-bared teeth.

Another sob catches in his mouth, just barely formed into the sound “John,” before he closes his own eyes in a grimace. The lines between his brows and bobbing throat call to John almost as strongly as his slicked prick; he emanates want and despair and urgency with every pulled breath, and John is helpless against it.

In a rush, John abandons the doorway and crosses the room, momentary desperation demolishing barriers that years of friendship could not. His hands fly straight to Sherlock’s jaw, calloused skin against smooth, hot planes. Fingertips flex and press as he pulls those wet, full lips to his own in a motion more lifeline than kiss. Tasting Sherlock for the first time, all sweat and fear and gorgeous agony, John whimpers, shaking with the need for restraint against the gravity of the heated skin against him, barely holding himself against the onslaught of crashing emotions. Sherlock holds John’s tongue in his mouth as if a holy relic, bowing to the power of it, praying with strokes and twists and teeth.

John’s arms are scorching under Sherlock’s grip as their clinging bodies push back into the wall. A framed poster of the periodic table crashes to the floor as Sherlock’s sharp shoulder blades tilt and press it off its anchors. It falls unnoticed, the two men coming together in a storm of shared breath and desperate hands searching for purchase. John’s mouth roams in earnest, teeth tugging at Sherlock’s cheek, earlobe, neck, chin. He grinds out noises halfway between a growl and a placation, something meant to ease this emotion-choked frenzy but failing to conceal the depth of his physical need for more. Sherlock gulps air with a soft moan as his deft fingertips undo buttons and frantically tug at John’s buckle and zip.

John is burning, in pain from the unbridled eroticism of it, wondering how he ever lived without this fevered Sherlock Holmes in his arms. His hands sweep over heated flesh, taking in those angled curves and writhing muscle, hard and soft in perfect turns. One hand braced on Sherlock’s hip, the other seeks and finds the erection that’s been pressed against him. As his fingers close around it, both of them gasp - the crushing relief painting everything red - and there’s no going back now. No return to the man John was before he knew the lines of Sherlock’s body and the weight of his cock. Never will he be able to forget the taste of that skin or push those noises from his ears.

In a gasp that’s almost tears, he realises how close he came to missing this.

He’s pulled almost violently back from this thought by the grip of Sherlock’s hand, now shoved into his pants and closed around his cock. Brilliant fingers give only a hint of gentleness before pushing straight past into quick jerks and a squeeze strong enough to ground him.

John presses Sherlock harder against the wall, urging him both away and nearer, a push-pull of the desperate inability to process what is happening. He can’t possibly let go of this firebrand; the binding strength of their combined breathing is almost deafening. Their hands move in concert, both stroking and falling, foreheads pressed together, knees and thighs knocking. John feels Sherlock’s heat through every inch of cotton, moans against the unfairness of missing the humid conjoining of skin on skin. He lets go of Sherlock just long enough to push down his clothing, single-minded in pressing cock to cock, and just barely registers the ridiculousness of standing there with his pants around his knees.

But Sherlock’s fingers - oh, those magical things, they push all thought from John’s mind. He’s anchored by Sherlock’s tongue on his teeth, fingers pressing into his nape and a hot palm on his prick, pulling and jerking him closer to a deliciously inevitable end. The smell of Sherlock’s sweat and sex has John reeling and rutting with abandon. His mind holds no clear thought but the basest of skin-hunger, pheromones dancing. Their cocks press together, all sliding urgency and flying fists.

The pressure building deep in his balls works its way up inside him, spreading wildly in an enveloping arc. A hitched gasp is all the warning he gives before spilling over Sherlock’s hand and trembling stomach, hips bucking and teeth grinding. He empties his restraint and fear and empathy in that release, his body deflating in a rush of adrenaline. He’d feel abandoned but for the livewire writhing man in his arms.

Ever the caretaker, John gathers himself to focus on Sherlock, using the calm ripples of his orgasm to paint reassurance upon the frantic body against him. John presses his temple to Sherlock’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut and damp as his fingers swoop and tighten around Sherlock’s cock.

Sherlock is shuddering, shaking in his urgency for release and touch, begging for the reassuring rush of heartsblood. John’s hands are achingly inadequate, containing nothing of the protection and concern that he feels. Slowly, he lowers to his knees, open mouth dragging along that perfect heaving abdomen, teeth scraping on hipbone as he tastes himself on Sherlock’s skin. His palms curl along the backs of sweating, straining thighs. John runs his lips along the length of Sherlock’s cock, rubbing his nose in the musky hair at its base, small exhalations creating eddies of wet heat. When he feels those clever fingers in his hair, he looks up, eyes searching above him for Sherlock’s gaze, and with that glance he begs Sherlock for the trust he needs. Pierced anew by those knowing fathomless eyes, John ducks his head and takes Sherlock fully into his mouth.

Sherlock tastes of things John could never imagine. He’s flying, disoriented, anchored only by the points of skin under his palms and the heavy heat on his lips. He measures time in Sherlock’s breaths, deep and ground-out, coming between cries somehow both desperate and erotic. His tongue caresses and coaxes, his cheeks hollowing as he pulls from deep within Sherlock’s despair. Each lap and suck asks Sherlock to let him heal, let John break him and catch him afterwards. One hand reaches between Sherlock’s legs to gently caress the sensitive skin around his balls as John’s tongue forms a prayer repeated in earnest. John thinks perhaps he has tasted God.

When Sherlock comes, with a rough bark that turns devastatingly to a sob, his slight body wracks with the overwhelming release of it and his fingers tighten on John’s temples and ears. John keeps him there on his tongue, swallowing the gift of his orgasm as best he knows, and holds him gently afterwards, suckling lightly.

Finally John pulls his lips free from Sherlock’s spent cock, laying his cheek along Sherlock’s hip, panting and basking in the sweat-soaked connection of skin.

There is barely enough energy between the two of them to make it to the bed. They slide under the duvet in a slow-motion tangle, heads on pillows making an island of normality in this tilted universe they’ve created.

John holds Sherlock's face to his chest and says nothing of the tears that fall. He focuses his breathing into a steady rhythm, urging the shivering Sherlock into a fitful, crashing sleep.

_____

In the slowly-dawning light, John traces the faint bruises that map Sherlock’s bone-white hip. He hates that his first taste of Sherlock came like this, at this desperate expense, missing all the usual soft glow of it. But, if he’s honest with himself, he supposes it never could have been any other way. He tries not to wonder about what comes next. The night before seems lifetimes away.

He hums lightly, a scratchy, contented sound, fingertips making patterns over Sherlock’s bare skin as he tries to soak it all in, revel in it before it’s closed off to him again. He places his fingers in spots burned into memory, remembers the pale sweat-slickness against him, the heat of it. Sherlock’s body feels both brand new and an old friend, charted and won.

He suddenly is aware that Sherlock is awake, eyes dark under ruffled curls and boring into him as if trying to read his mind through his skull. John almost imagines he feels that gaze creeping deep under his bones, warm and insistent.

“You wanted this,” Sherlock says in realization, his voice pitted and rough. John knows there’s no regret in his body language because he feels none. This feels right amidst everything that is wrong, the only thing he has left to believe in. He gives a small smile, a swooping leap of faith.

“I didn’t know it; not really. But yeah. I did want this,” he replies. Takes a shaky breath. “...Want you.”

John looks into those impossible eyes, his pulse adrift in a pale sea and he doesn’t know what’s coming next.

“Are you… ok with it?” He asks, both fearing and craving the answer.

Sherlock’s intensity leaves him flatfooted, this early in the morning. His heart pounds, skin prickling. How did so much of what matters in his life end up right here, in this one question?

Sherlock reaches out a fingertip tentatively, tracing John’s stubbled jawline. John thinks he sees a bit of reverence there and it’s so goddamned beautiful.

“Nothing has ever felt so right,” Sherlock murmurs, still tracing. He sounds surprised. At this, his lashes sweep up, the full force of his gaze locking onto John in something not quite a surrender, not quite a challenge.

The flare of joy in John’s chest burns hot and fierce, and his palms tingle as they cradle Sherlock’s jaw and nape, fingers curling into his sleep-damp hair. There is the whisper of unspoken promises in his answering kiss.

 

**Author's Note:**

> “When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.”  
> ― Jess C. Scott


End file.
